



Class 
Book 



GopightN?.. 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



BY 
ARTHUR C. BENSON 

FELLOW OF MAGDALENE COLLEGE 
CAMBRIDGE 

THE UPTON LETTERS 

FROM A COLLEGE 
WINDOW 

BESIDE STILL WATERS 

THE ALTAR FIRE 

THE SCHOOLMASTER 

AT LARGE 

THE SILENT ISLE 

JOHN RUSKIN 

LEAVES OF THE TREE 

CHILD OF THE DAWN 

PAUL THE MINSTREL 

THY ROD AND THY 

STAFF 

ALONG THE ROAD 
JOYOUS GARD 
WATERSPRINGS 
WHERE NO FEAR WAS 



THE 

Orchard Pavilion 



BY 

ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER BENSON 

FELLOW OF MAGDALENE COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE 



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Sufiaros ov /j.eyd\to 

<pl\wv 5' €<ro> y\^K€ta Maxi • • 



G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

NEW YORK AND LONDON 

Zbc fmtcherbocfter press 

1914 






Copyright, 1914 

BY 

ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER BENSON 



Ube ftnfcfeetbocfcer f>regg, flew IBorfe 

DEC 18 1914 

©CI.A391007 



THE ORCHARD PAVILION 



The Orchard Pavilion 



PART I 

I 

It was the pavilion which had first 
attracted Roderick Armitage to the 
place; he had caught a sight of its 
slender stone chimney, with the queer 
pierced ornament at the top, above the 
flowering apple-trees. Roderick had a 
pleasant taste for the style and aspect 
of houses, and saw beauties of propor- 
tion and material where many people 
could see none. It was in one of his 
undergraduate vacations, and he was 
rambling about the Cotswolds alone — 
that was one of his fancies. The farm 
— Sunset was its charming name — to 

3 



The Orchard Pavilion 

which the pavilion belonged, stood at 
the end of the village of Helmdon, one 
of those bare and beautiful little hamlets 
of stone houses, set at every possible 
angle on the banks of a full clear stream 
of water, that ran brimming under low 
stone bridges, and beneath the terrace- 
walls of little gardens full of gay flowers, 
and red-clustered shrubs, dripped over 
by soft pads of white and purple aubrie- 
tia, and trailing toadflax. The valley 
itself was cold of aspect, with its spare 
green pastures and stone-piled walls, as 
it folded in among the hills; but there 
was a rich far-off view of blue tree- 
dotted plains and faint wolds. Higher 
up stood Sunset Farm, a substantial 
house of rich orange stone, among 
solid barns and granaries, roofed with 

4 



The Orchard Pavilion 

heavy stone- tiles, and surrounded by 
elms and sycamores. Roderick had 
walked in, as was his easy custom, to 
ask if he might look at the pavilion; 
and when he saw it from the farm- 
garden, he was enchanted by it; it was 
built on low-crowned arches, and the 
little space beneath it was crowded 
with farm-litter, hurdles, posts, and a 
turnip-chopping machine; the upper 
part of it seemed to consist of one big 
room with pedimented windows, all 
very rococo and fanciful. He could not 
conceive how the dainty little building 
had come there. The old good-natured 
farmer, Mr. Hickes, had come up, and 
had told him that it was the only part 
intact of a great house which had once 
stood there; and of which the farm 

5 



The Orchard Pavilion 

itself was a mutilated portion. There 
had been another similar pavilion, 
further down the orchard, which had 
become ruinous, and had been taken 
down, he recollected, when he was a 
small boy. Mr. Hickes had pointed 
out to him, the old lines of grass-grown 
terraces which had formed the garden; 
he took him into the house, and showed 
him the big fireplaces, the heavy ceil- 
ings of fine plaster-work, the bits of 
oak panelling — then he had taken him 
to the pavilion; there was a little stair- 
way which led down from the upper 
chamber into the orchard. But the 
room into which he presently brought 
Roderick, which formed the whole in- 
terior of the pavilion, was amazingly 
delightful. It had a coved ceiling of 
6 



The Orchard Pavilion 

plaster, with some traces of colouring 
still lingering on the clumsy moulded 
grape-vine with which it was ornament- 
ed. The walls had been frescoed, and 
though much of the paint had peeled 
off, there were dim forms of heroes and 
nymphs still visible. There was a solid 
oak table in the room, and some wooden 
chairs. It all seemed in good enough 
repair, and the antique dim glass was 
still in the windows. The place took 
Roderick's fancy very strangely; and 
as he was going on his way, the farmer 
offered him a glass of cider, which he 
gladly accepted, and they talked a little. 
He told the old man that he was an 
Oxford undergraduate, and Mr. Hickes 
said rather shyly that he supposed he 
did not know of any young gentlemen 

7 



The Orchard Pavilion 

who might like lodgings in the summer — 
the house was a big one, and they were 
glad to take in as many as three lodgers, 
if they could put up with simple food. 
Roderick at once struck a bargain; he 
and two of his friends would, he was 
sure, like to come there later in the 
summer. He was shown some pleasant 
bare clean bedrooms — and the farmer 
went on to say that if they liked to have 
the use of the pavilion to sit in, he would 
have it swept out, and some chairs put 
there — it was a nice cool place in the 
summer heat. He was introduced to 
the farmer's wife, a pleasant bustling 
woman a good deal younger than her 
husband. That was the simple pre- 
lude to a charming adventure. 



8 



II 



They arrived there in a hot July. 
Roderick had found his friends only too 
ready to accompany him. They had 
done a similar thing a year before, but 
then they had been uncomfortable 
enough in a frowsy village inn. Mr. 
Hickes met them at the little wayside 
station four miles away. They had 
piled up his cart with their luggage, 
and had bicycled up. It was a time of 
hot clear still weather. His two friends 
were Harry Knollys and Fred Norman. 
The three had been at Charterhouse 
together, and the old alliance at school 
had been kept up at the University. 

9 



The Orchard Pavilion 

Roderick himself was the only son of his 
parents. His father had been a doctor, 
but had died ten years before. His 
mother, a sweet-tempered, rather help- 
less woman, had been left well off, and 
Roderick had a single sister, an active 
cheerful girl. They lived in a quiet 
Hampshire village, but Roderick's home 
did not mean much to him. He was 
allowed to do very much as he liked, his 
mother placidly assenting to any plans 
that he chose to make. He had been 
hitherto quite unable to decide on a 
profession, and he was bursting with 
ideas and experiments. He read, he 
wrote, he tried his hand at drawing, he 
played tolerably on a piano. He had no 
academical ambitions, and thought 
meanly of exact knowledge. He pro- 
10 



The Orchard Pavilion 

posed to educate himself on his own 
lines, but it was a fitful process ; much 
of his time was spent in eager talk, and 
much in vague and delightful reflection ; 
he was often inclined to think his own 
company the best in the world, though 
he cultivated easy and pleasant rela- 
tions with all sorts of men; he was 
popular and easy-going, entertained a 
good deal in a simple way, and was apt 
to form sudden and not very lasting 
friendships with people whom, for the 
time being, he idealised. But he 
had a tough critical intelligence, and 
judged people both tolerantly and 
incisively. He had a great disgust both 
for stupidity and sensuality, disliked 
alcohol and tobacco, and found all 
women unintelligible and even tire- 

II 



The Orchard Pavilion 

some; he had no religion, but much 
enthusiasm. 

Harry Knollys was a very different 
type; he was a big quiet creature, who 
rowed in the boat, and went in for 
athletics. He was handsome and strong, 
with brown curling hair and grey eyes, 
very imperturbable, and extremely 
sensible and kindly. There was no 
one whose opinion was more deferred 
to in the College, because he always 
said very simply, but without any 
provocativeness, what he thought. He 
was a man of whom it was natural to 
ask a favour, and he was thoroughly 
and consistently obliging. He found 
something to like in most men, and 
never censured or disapproved — and 
indeed there was little reason for him 
12 



The Orchard Pavilion 

to do so, because men tended to behave 
soberly and reasonably in his presence. 
His father was a clergyman, and he 
himself intended to become one in due 
course. He was looked upon by the 
dons as one of the very best and soundest 
men in the College. He was not at all 
brilliant, but he had a good head and a 
sound judgment. 

The third friend, Fred Norman, was 
the least popular; he had some Scotch 
blood in him, and his manner was dry 
and rather uncompromising. His father 
was a poor and unsuccessful solicitor, 
and there were several children. Fred 
Norman had very little money, and 
made it go a long way. He worked too 
hard, and seldom left his rooms for the 
sake of company. He was a fair athlete ; 

13 



The Orchard Pavilion 

but he had no geniality, and very little 
small talk. He was suspected of being 
rather superior; he was thought well of 
by the dons, but repelled their advances, 
and had no use for them, except in a 
professional capacity. He had been 
known to say that he wished they 
would stick to business, and not bother. 
But he had a real affection for Roderick, 
whom he treated as a pleasant child. 
He intended to go to the Bar, if it could 
be managed ; and he heartily disliked his 
slovenly home, with a cross mother, an 
overworked father, and some rather 
grim brothers and sisters. 



H 






Ill 



They had a delicious month at the 
farm. Norman worked grimly, Knollys 
conscientiously, and Roderick alter- 
nately studied the history of Italian 
painting, to illustrate which he had 
brought down a mass of cheap photo- 
graphs, or, if the atmosphere of toil 
was oppressive, he pursued what he 
called his agricultural studies, which 
consisted in accompanying Mr. Hickes 
about the farm, and getting him to tell 
old rustic stories. The other two 
treated his Italian pictures with an 
amused indulgence. "I can't really 
feel," said Norman, holding up a photo- 

15 






The Orchard Pavilion 

graph of a Botticelli Madonna by the 
corner, "that it could ever have been 
worth anyone's while to spend time 
over a thing like this! It's not like 
anything; and when it was done, the 
painter can only have been disgusted 
with it." "It was their religion that 
made them do it," said Knollys; "you 
can see that the people who did those 
things really believed in religion." 
"You are both of you utterly and 
entirely wrong," said Roderick. "It 
was worth while, because they wanted 
to make something beautiful — making 
beautiful things is the only thing which 
is worth while — and it was not religion 
at all. They did not believe in religion 
as you believe in it, Harry! It's a 
social force, isn't it? or something quite 
16 



The Orchard Pavilion 

as dull? They took it all for granted, 
of course, but not as a useful thing — 
just as a thing which was inconceivably 
grand and beautiful. It had nothing 
to do with being good at all. They 
just painted their wives and children, 
or their mistresses for the matter of 
that; and it was the only direction in 
which their imagination could move. 
It's like the verse in the Blessed Damo- 
seir 

He quoted with unction: 

"Herself shall bring us, hand in hand, 
To Him, round whom all souls 

Kneel, — the unnumbered solemn heads 
Bow'd with their aureoles: 

And Angels, meeting us, shall sing 
To their citherns and citoles. " 

"What extraordinary stuff you do 

17 



The Orchard Pavilion 

get hold of, Roderick!" said Norman, 
in an agony of common-sense. "That 
seems to me unmitigated twaddle: 
'To their citherns and citoles,' indeed !" 

"It's the most beautiful poem ever 
written by a man of nineteen, " said 
Roderick. 

"Yes, I daresay it is!" said Norman, 
"that's not saying much!" 

"Fred, you are absolutely hopeless!" 
said Roderick; "you can't distinguish 
between the books which can be read, 
and the books which must be written 
about." 

"I quite agree," said Norman, "that 
it is just as inconceivable that human 
beings should have thought it worth 
while to have written most of the 
Classics. But I don't care a damn 
18 



The Orchard Pavilion 

about that! It's my business to know 
them." 

"This is pathetic!" said Roderick. 
"Haven't you got further than that? 
Books are not about things, nor are 
there pictures of things. They simply 
are things: they are art — they are 
symbols." 

"I haven't any idea what you are 
talking about," said Norman, with the 
dignity of ignorance. "This Thucy- 
dides — it's an account of the Pelo- 
ponnesian War." 

Roderick groaned. "No, it isn't 
that!" he said, "it's an epic — I've 
read very little of it, but enough to 
know it is an epic." 

"Aren't you confusing it with 
Homer?" said Knollys. 

19 



The Orchard Pavilion 

"Great and merciful God!" said Rod- 
erick, "you two chaps are in nether 
darkness! You sit reading half the 
day, and you don't know what you are 
doing or where you are going. Let 
me expound the holy mysteries of Art. 
I feel like a priest in the shrine, inter- 
rupted by the chatter of jackdaws!" 

"Come, shut you up!" said Norman, 
"this isn't business — get out to your 
agricultural studies, or hold your jaw!" 

"I see what you mean, in a way," 
said Knollys, politely, "but I don't 
agree with you. You shall get It all 
off your chest sometime. Mind you, 
I don't think these pictures nonsense 
at all. I think them rather good in 
their place." 

"Yes, you think Art is the handmaid 
20 



The Orchard Pavilion 

of religion, " said Roderick, "you don't 
even know that religion is an art too, 
and a rather debased kind of art — that 
part of it which isn't magic ! " 

Knollys smiled. " That's very un- 
practical," he said; "but look here, I'm 
going to finish this chapter before I 
have lunch, so you had better stow it. 
This isn't the sort of talk for the morn- 
ing, you know, and if it goes on, you 
will be chucked out of the boat!" He 
seized Roderick by the arms and pro- 
pelled him to the staircase. "Run 
away and play," he said. "That's all 
you're good for!" 

Roderick made an insulting gesture, 
and fled. "He's a mere child!" said 
Norman. "It's a mercy for him he 
has got some money." "I'm afraid 

21 



The Orchard Pavilion 

he'll never settle down to anything," 
said Knollys, "and yet he's clever 
enough in his way!" 

The two, left alone, resumed their 
work, while the sun streaming in touched 
the faded frescoes with soft gold, and 
made the curly head and fine features 
of Knollys into the face of an angel; 
but that did not occur to either him or 
Norman. They were both comfortable 
and healthy, and if they were not 
interested in their work, they both took 
a sort of businesslike pride in doing it. 



22 



IV 



"Poor infants!" said Roderick, to 
himself, thinking how delicious the old 
house, with the big trees behind it, 
looked through the apple-trees, laden 
with waxen globes that were just 
beginning to blush on the southern 
side. "All on one side! " he thought to 
himself, "that's just perfect — why did 
I never think of that before?" He 
began to murmur verses to himself : 

"The sun-kissed orchard, all one way 
Blushed ripening in the steady noon." 

"I'll work that out sometime," he 
thought. When he found the farmer, 

23 



The Orchard Pavilion 

he was delighted to see that his cheeks 
were like the apples too, ripened by the 
sun and air to a delicate flush. "I 
declare, Mr. Hickes, " he said, "your 
cheeks are just like apples." 

The old man smiled, and put up his 
hand to his face. "That's the air," 
he said, "that does that — they might 
be like a worser thing — but your cheeks, 
Mr. Roderick, they're more like peaches. 
You keep them like that, and you won't 
repent it! I like a boy to look like a 
peach — then you know he's going 
straight!" 

"Mr. Hickes, you are a poet!" said 
Roderick. Mr. Hickes smiled, not ill- 
pleased. He felt a real affection for the 
boy, and liked his company. "You're a 
one to talk!" he said, shaking his head. 
24 



The Orchard Pavilion 

"Now we'll go and find some eggs for 
lunch," said Roderick. "Your eggs 
are heavenly! I wonder how you 
would like the eggs we get from the 
kitchen at Oxford — they taste stuffy, 
you know." " Stuffy, do they now," 
said Mr. Hickes; "that's a dreadful 
thing in an egg f to be sure! They 
shouldn't do that, as a matter of liking." 
"We are all rather stuffy at Oxford," 
said Roderick. "You three ain't the 
stuffy ones, then!" said Mr. Hickes. 
"Mrs. Hickes says she never saw three 
fresher young gentlemen; it's a plea- 
sure to her that her linen should be 
lain in by such, she says — and she's a 
woman of her word, is Mrs. Hickes." 
"I really must write all this down," 
said Roderick. "What's that, sir?" 

25 



The Orchard Pavilion 

said Mr. Hickes. "Why, what you 
and Mrs. Hickes say," said Roderick. 
"Nay, nay!" said Mr. Hickes, "it 
ain't for that — it just comes to the 
tongue so." 

He stood in his serviceable brown 
suit and leggings, feeling with his stick 
behind some piled-up wood. "I see 
the black pullet about here pretty con- 
stant — there ought to be some eggs in 
here." "Oh, let me look," said Rod- 
erick. "Yes, my word, here they are 
right enough — one, two, three — now 
then for three more! I declare I think 
that finding eggs is the best fun in the 
whole world!" "Yes, if you can lay 
your hand on them," said Mr. Hickes; 
"that's a nice brown one there — they 
seem to eat creamier, the brown ones — 
26 



The Orchard Pavilion 



it's a fancy I have!" ''It looks as if 
she must have been drinking coffee, " 
said Roderick. Mr. Hickes laughed 
loud. "Nay," he said, "it's the soil 
is that; the black pullet — she doesn't 
trouble the coffee much." 



27 



The three had many talks, both at 
meals, on walks, on bicycle rides, or 
best of all late at night, smoking in the 
pavilion. These talks as a rule followed 
the same sort of line, Roderick airing 
any sense or nonsense that came into 
his head, Norman objecting and retort- 
ing with much apparent but no real 
contempt, Knollys conscientiously and 
genuinely attempting to be fair to both 
points of view. It was a very good 
atmosphere for Roderick to appear at 
his liveliest. "The best of Fred," he 
once said to Knollys, "is that there is 
never any mistake about his liking you." 

28 



The Orchard Pavilion 

"But what about me?" Knollys had 
said. "Oh, you — " said Roderick, 
smiling vaguely, "you always make 
the best of everybody — charity never 
faileth, you know! I represent Faith 
and Hope!" "But what does Fred 
represent?" said Knollys. "Why, 
Common- sense, " said Roderick. 

As a matter of fact Norman was 
deeply devoted to Roderick, and though 
he was extremely frank to him, he never 
allowed him to be criticised, even by 
Knollys. "Roderick is like a little 
butterfly," said Knollys one morning 
to Norman, when Roderick had dashed 
out. "He can't be serious for a 
moment . " "I don ' t know about that ! " 
said Norman. "I think he's quite as 
serious as I want. He talks nonsense, 

29 



The Orchard Pavilion 

of course; but it's good nonsense; he's 
never stupid, and he's never mean — 
he stirs you up somehow; he's like the 
soda in the whisky; not alcoholic, but 
like pins in your throat and inside!" 

Roderick in fact possessed the subtle 
thing called charm; he was not pro- 
found or logical or clear-headed; he 
could not conduct an argument, but 
he saw things in quick flashes — and he 
had that indefinable gracefulness of 
face, action, manner, look, and voice 
which makes people aware of a person's 
presence, anxious to please him, de- 
sirous to see and hear him, dull when 
he goes, cheerful when he returns. 
Roderick never talked in the same way to 
different people; he always established 
a relation, and paid his companions 
30 



The Orchard Pavilion 

the subtle compliment of recognising 
their distinct qualities, remembering 
what they said, knowing their prefer- 
ences and prejudices; and he had too 
the magnetism which made the touch 
of his hand on a shoulder or arm into 
a sort of little caress. He and Norman 
had been walking one morning in 
the sunshine after breakfast in the 
little garden, and he had said to 
Norman that he was thinking of going 
away for a couple of nights to some 
friends in the neighbourhood. "Oh, 
not now!" said Norman, "when we 
go away, if you like — look here, I mean 
that — I like your being here!" Roder- 
ick looked at him for a moment, and 
then bent down to a violet-bed that 
grew beside the path. "What huge 

31 



The Orchard Pavilion 

violets these are!" he said, in a moment, 
taking hold of one. "I really almost 
thought they were pansies!" 

A minute later he said to Norman: 
"I nearly made a mistake just now. I 
very nearly picked a violet and gave it 
you, when you said that. It would 
have expressed what I meant; but 
you wouldn't have liked it, because 
you hate sentiment. You would not 
have known what to do with it. You 
would have twirled it in your hand, 
and dropped it when I wasn't looking." 
"Try and see!" said Norman. "Oh, 
no!" said Roderick, "I know better 
— besides, it wouldn't mean now at all 
what I felt then!" "Pearls before 
swine?" said Norman. "Well, no," 
said Roderick, "more like what they 
32 



The Orchard Pavilion 

call in the advertisements, 'peach -fed 
Calif ornian bacon. ' " 

On this particular evening — it was a 
hot still night, and a fitful scented 
breeze ran about the orchard and died 
away again, while the sky was pierced 
with innumerable stars — they were 
sitting in the pavilion, lounging and 
gossiping. "What a nice night to 
make love on!" said Roderick suddenly. 
"I've never been in love myself, except 
when I was ten, with a friend of my 
mother's — there doesn't seem any time 
for it nowadays; but I can't help think- 
ing it must be rather fun. Haven't 
either of you chaps ever been in love? 
No, of course you haven't, Fred — but 
I somehow suspect Harry of a demure 
affair in the background. " He looked 

3 33 



The Orchard Pavilion 

fixedly at Knollys, who shifted in his 
chair, got rather red, and coughed. 
Roderick imitated him. " Oh, that's it ! " 
he said; "well, I will spare you now! 
I admit you can't tell before Fred, but 
I'll have it out of you sometime. " He 
looked smilingly at Knollys for a 
moment, and then said: "Look here, 
I feel very confidential to-night. Let's 
be confidential! Why shouldn't we say 
for once what we are really out for, we 
three — what we mean to do and be. 
I'll begin the performance, if you will 
both swear to go on." "Well, we'll 
hear you first!" said Norman, "and 
then we'll decide. Now then, off you 
go!" 

"No, no!" said Roderick, "you will 
have to swear — uplifted hands, in the 

34 



The Orchard Pavilion 



Scotch fashion — just an affirmation !" 
He lifted his hand, and Norman raised 
his, and a moment afterwards Knollys 
did the same. 

"Now, no nonsense!*' said Roderick. 
"We'll be serious — as serious as death 
for once. Let me think a minute, 
and pray for honesty — crystal-clear 
honesty." 

He sat meditating, while an owl, 
hidden in the elms, fluted softly, and 
was answered by another owl further 
up the valley. "There!" said Roder- 
ick, "that's an omen — just that — our 
native woodnotes wild! Here goes! 
Now, you are not to laugh, or be asinine, 
or shy, or stupid. I state unmistakably 
that I am going to worship beauty. 
I can't explain what it is, but I know it 

35 



The Orchard Pavilion 

when I see it. It is all wrapped up in 
this, that you do things because you 
like them. Not what you happen to 
like at the moment, because that is 
piggish, nor what you think right, 
because that is priggish — but what you 
know to be beautiful. I'll give you an 
instance. I have a remarkably good 
appetite, and I like drink — not for 
drinky but for drunky — I like the sensa- 
tion of power and brilliance that it gives 
me. But you may have observed that 
I never touch spirits, and drink water at 
lunch, and very often at dinner. If I 
ever do drink, it's for kindness. And 
why do I abstain? — because it is beauti- 
ful to abstain; and because people who 
drink become coarse and stupid, and I 
like having myself in hand. Drink has 

36 



The Orchard Pavilion 

a power over me, and I don't like being 
interfered with. 

"That's a preface! The principle, as 
Harry would say, runs through my life. 

"Now, for the present, I want to 
look into everything which amuses 
or interests me. I have an idea that 
everyone who tries to do anything in 
art is in the same case as myself — he 
has seen something beautiful, and wants 
to say so. I need not describe all my 
rich and varied accomplishments, but 
you may have noticed that I practise 
them for my own pleasure, and not to 
impress other people, though I can't 
help being impressive. It's a gift I 
have! 

"Well, I don't care a damn about 
that! I want to be liked, because that 

37 



The Orchard Pavilion 

is beautiful. I don't want to be ad- 
mired, because that is ugly. I mean 
to go on looking round. I am going to 
read most books, to see what people are 
driving at; I am going to look at pic- 
tures, and see fine places, and listen to 
music, and discover delightful people. 
I am not going to touch business or 
politics with a pair of tongs; and I don't 
care a hang about social reform. The 
only reform worth having is that people 
should wish to be beautiful, and many 
people don't know what it means, while 
some people are it without knowing it. 
I am not going to settle down at any- 
thing until I see what is worth doing, 
and then I shall do it with all my might. 
I don't want to be married, and I don't 
want not to be married. If I can find 

38 



The Orchard Pavilion 

someone who is beautiful, and who 
wants the same things as I do, I might 
make a match of it. But I mean to live 
with people who can give me a sense of 
there being fine things about, and who 
can just neglect ordinary things; and 
why I go about with you two chaps is 
more than I can tell — excuse my can- 
dour! Then I don't want to be ill, I 
don't want to suffer, I don't want to die 
— that's all very ugly — though I have a 
suspicion that if I am obliged to endure 
those indignities, there may be some- 
thing rather splendid behind them — in 
fact, I think that no one can do really 
splendid things, without having found a 
way out of beastly things. I suppose," 
he went on, "that that's all of it Hebrew 
to you two. Fred thinks it silly, and 

39 



The Orchard Pavilion 

Harry thinks it wicked — he would call 
it hedonistic, if he knew what the word 
meant! I shall gratify my curiosity, 
but not because I want to do nasty 
things, but to find out what is nice — 
No, I won't be interrupted! Things 
are not always what they seem. But I 
won't have anything to do with what 
is dull, and I don't want to help or 
benefit anyone, or set a good example, 
or influence anyone. I don't believe 
in that. The only thing you can do for 
people is to love them, if you can; and 
many people are detestable, and more 
are tiresome. The one fatal mistake 
is not to know what you like and why 
you like it. And so I come back to my 
creed, and say that I like things which 
are beautiful, and because they are 
40 



The Orchard Pavilion 

beautiful, and for no other reason." 
He stopped and laughed and looked at 
his companions. "Now you know!" 
he said; adding, "and I suppose that 
why I like your company is that there 
are some elements of beauty about you 
two — sadly warped and blurred, of 
course — but a little basis — enough to 
go upon. Now, it's your turn, Harry — 
we will hear you first!" 

They sat for a moment in silence, 
and Norman gave a laugh, and made as 
if he would have spoken. "Hush, 
hush!" said Roderick, "this is a solemn 
affair, a celebration of mysteries. Harry 
has to read the Epistle." 

Knollys sat in his chair, with knitted 
brows. Then he said, rather shyly: 
"Well, I don't mind speaking out for 

41 



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once — but mind, " he added, "I'm not 
very good at saying what I feel — and 
if I use rather stupid words, it's be- 
cause I'm used to them. I don't want 
you two to think them affected, even 
if they sound so. . . . Of course," he 
went on, "I see that there's a lot in 
what Roderick says — I agree with a lot 
of it, though I shouldn't put it like 
that; but I believe — well, I believe in 
God, you know, and I believe in con- 
science. That sounds very stiff; but 
I mean it. I mean by God a Power 
that put me here, and that wants 
certain things to be done. I don't know 
why He does not do them faster — but 
there is something about, which I know 
to be evil — I think it is what Roderick 
calls ugliness — nasty, filthy, selfish 
42 



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things. Now, I will be honest. I don't 
claim to be good, because I often do not 
do what I ought to do. I don't speak 
out when I know I ought, and I excuse 
it to myself by thinking that if I can 
get an influence over a man by not 
seeming priggish, I may be able to do 
something for him which I couldn't do 
if he thought me priggish. I don't think 
that's right, but one has to be round- 
about. It's like this — you have to 
bicycle by a road, even if it doesn't go 
straight to the place you want to get at. 
You can't ride your bike across ploughed 
fields and streams — you have got to 
make terms with people, though I 
should do it less if I was braver. But I 
see in the Gospel that Christ — I am a 
Christian — did not go in for finding 

43 



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fault with sinners, and I don't think He 
did it because He excused sin, but be- 
cause He meant to save them, which He 
could not do unless they loved and 
trusted Him. 

"As to conscience, I believe it is God 
telling me what I ought to do; and I 
want to do that; and I want other 
people to follow conscience, because I 
do not think they can be happy in any 
other way. And I am a Christian, be- 
cause I believe that Christ was God, and 
that He is still here in the world, work- 
ing not by example and memory, but 
by power and life. I believe that He 
helps me when I pray, and I do pray; 
and then I am a Churchman, because I 
believe that the Church was a Society 
which Christ founded, and that He 

44 



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meant all the world to be drawn into 
it; and I am an Anglican, because 
though I see that we are probably wrong 
in some things, I believe we are less 
wrong than other Churches; because I 
think that the Romans have put things 
into the Gospel which are not there, and 
Dissenters take away things which are 
there. 

"That's all very short and stupid, I 
am afraid," Knollys added, looking em- 
barrassed; "but I don't often talk about 
these things, and I don't talk easily 
about them — that's a fault of mine; 
but it's rather a relief to say them out 
for once. And what I mean to do is to 
work on those lines, and to try to induce 
other people to see the truth — and let 
me say that I think that Roderick sees 

45 



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a part of the truth, but only a part — 
that he is too much taken up with what 
seems to me to be pretty things — but 
things which have to be disregarded, if 
you are looking for what is right. I 
think you must seek the Kingdom of 
God and His righteousness first — and 
that books and pictures and so on are 
some of the things which may be added 
unto you — because I believe that beau- 
tiful things can help, and are one side 
of God's mind — but they can be a 
hindrance too/' 

Knollys sat blushing, ashamed of his 
earnestness. 

" That's all right!" said Roderick, 
"full marks for that! I see what you 
are out for, though I don't agree. Now 
then, Fred!" 
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"Well, I won't refuse!" said Fred— 
"but you will neither of you like what 
I am going to say. I think that both 
of you know a damned sight too much 
about these things. I am an Agnostic, 
of course, and I don't believe that any- 
one can know as much about God as 
Harry does, or as you do, Roderick, 
for the matter of that, because you mean 
the same sort of thing, only you call it 
Beauty. I think there's a Power, all 
right! No one but a fool can be an 
Atheist; but I don't know if it is a 
Person. If it is a Person, he's a very 
strong-minded Person, not like any of 
us three, and caring precious little 
what we think of him. He's not senti- 
mental, or artistic, nor what I should 
call good. He does plenty of cruel, 

47 



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unjust, devilish things. He cares very- 
little about individuals, and a lot about 
the race. He's ahead of us — tremen- 
dously ahead of us — and, for some 
reason or other, he can't do as he likes, 
though he makes tremendous efforts to 
do so. To be honest, I really think 
that there are two things at work, one 
wanting to rush on and one wanting to 
stop; and I haven't a notion which is 
going to win. 

"Then, for myself, I know very little 
about that either. I know what I like 
and what I hate — and I change, though 
why I change, and what I am changing 
into, I don't know; and to be frank, I 
don't much care. 

"What am I out for then? Well, I 
want to be strong, I want to get what I 

4 8 



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like, and I want to be felt, as they say. 
I like work and I like power. I hate 
mean and small and dirty and grubby 
people. Why I like you two is because 
you are neither of you that, whatever 
you may be. I can't make people like 
me, and I don't want to; but I don't 
mean to be taken liberties with, and I 
mean to make people do what I tell 
them to do; I believe in the State — 
I mean that I think it's an arrangement 
for living sensibly together with as much 
liberty as possible. If people won't fall 
into line, they must be made to. And 
I haven't any use for idle, wasteful, 
stupid, fanciful people. I've more use 
really, Harry, for you than for Roderick, 
because you can be used to keep order, 
and I'm not so sure that he can. But 

49 



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there is such a thing as leisure, and 
people have got to be amused — and 
Roderick can come in there if he likes. 
If you ask me where my theory of what 
is right comes from, I say frankly that 
the world is in a mess, and my theory 
keeps it a little more straight — but it's 
only making the best out of rather a 
bad business. There!" Fred added, 
more moved than was his wont, "that's 
my idea, plainly, and perhaps coarsely 
put — but you two belong to me, and not 
I to you, and that's the truth. You 
have got to come into line, or take the 
consequences. " 

"That's really very fine!" said Rod- 
erick, with a glance of admiration. 
"The tyrant's vein; and it suits you 
very well! I didn't know you had any 
50 



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of these ideas, and it's really very- 
creditable. But now I am going to sum 
up, so there! I can't let this alone. 
You are both of you wrong, because 
your only idea is brute force. You have 
both got what you call convictions, and 
I am above both of you, because I have 
none. I believe in persuasion and 
beautiful example; Harry can only 
threaten people with a loss of happiness 
and Fred can only bully them into 
playing his particular game. It's all 
force, and force is no go. There's 
nothing attractive about either of your 
theories, and attractiveness is the only 
power worth anything. Harry's is a 
starved affair, because he believes in the 
inspired opinion of pious people. I 
believe in the inspiration of genius, but 

51 



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pious people are very rarely geniuses, 
though I grant you that Christ, and 
Isaiah, and the author of Job, and St. 
Paul, and St. Francis of Assisi, were all 
geniuses. But the thing has got into 
the hands of the respectable, and that's 
a dull affair; while as to Fred, he would 
like it to be in the hands of the strong 
people, and that's a much duller affair. 
Now I believe in a power that woos us — 
Christianity grows up out of it, and gets 
perverted into timidity — and politics 
grow up out of it, and get stiffened into 
prejudice. The fault of both is that 
they are stupid and hard. There's 
nothing fine or free about them. They 
are heavy-handed, they are all rules — 
and what we want are instincts. " 

"Yes," said Norman, "I agree with 
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that; it is instinct which we want to 
train — that is what civilisation does. 
You can't make a man into a good 
citizen by bringing him to heel by means 
of law, or even by trying to persuade 
him how sensible the law is; but you 
can educate his children properly, and 
they, or their children, will be better 
citizens by instinct. But it all has to 
be done scientifically; knowledge goes 
before and feeling follows after ; the man 
of science studies the law of heredity, 
and takes advantage of it gradually to 
produce a better stock. " 

"Of course," said Roderick, "the 
man of science is useful enough in his 
way — to do the dirty work — or call it 
the spade-work if you prefer; but don't 
you see that emotion must precede even 

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that? The scientific man must want to 
make things better, before he takes the 
pains to find out how. It's a dim idea of 
beauty, I admit — but still it is an idea 
of beauty that haunts him. He is a 
muddled sort of idealist at bottom, 
though he does not know it. Why, take 
a thing like sanitation; the pleasure of 
the nose, and the dislike of bad smells, 
produced sanitation among the Romans 
long before they knew anything about 
bacteria; and Harry is in the same 
muddle too; he talks as if virtue had 
been invented by Christianity — but 
Christianity was evoked by the fact 
that people felt that goodness was more 
beautiful than wickedness — and that is 
why I agree with him on the whole 
more than I do with you, because 

54 



The Orchard Pavilion 

theology is at least an attempt to express 
emotions, while science is an attempt to 
disregard emotions." 

"Oh, no," said Norman, "science 
does not disregard emotions — it ana- 
lyses them, and shows that they are 
all only developments of very primitive 
things — the wish to live, the instinct of 
reproduction, and so on. But your 
mistake is to confuse artistic emotions 
with primary needs — artistic emotions 
are only produced by an artificial pro- 
cess. Everyone ought to work; and 
if you relieve a class from the need to 
work, and make them elaborately com- 
fortable, then their superficial fancies 
begin to have an altogether unreal hold 
over them — art is only a parasitic 
growth!" 

55 



The Orchard Pavilion 

"But it is there!" said Roderick, 
"and my emotions at the sight of an 
orchard on a sunny morning are just 
as real as my sensations if I have typhoid 
fever. That is where you are unscien- 
tific. You haven't any emotions your- 
self, and so you cannot conceive that 
any well-regulated people ought to have 
any either. You talk contemptuously 
of the imagination as a fantastic sort 
of thing — and that makes all your science 
a sham affair, because you only inves- 
tigate the very few and dull phenomena 
you happen to have observed. " 

"It's just a question of relative 
importance, " said Norman. " Of course 
all knowledge is not equally valuable. 
There are a certain number of threads 
in that rug — but it is not worth anyone's 

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while to count them. If the scientific 
man neglects imagination, it is because it 
obviously doesn't lead anywhere. When 
we have settled the things that do matter, 
then we will take up the less important 
phenomena. One finds fairy-stories, for 
instance, in every nation. It's a pheno- 
menon, I grant you; but it isn't worth 
while to devote one's life to disproving 
the existence of fairies." 

"I'll take you on at that," said 
Roderick. " Here's an argument which 
Harry might use. The parables in the 
Gospel, which are imaginary tales, have 
had more effect in producing orderly 
citizens than all the scientific books 
which were ever written. Harry, why 
don't you speak up — come and help to 
knock out this wretched materialist." 

57 



The Orchard Pavilion 

Harry smiled rather dimly; then he 
got up, knocked out his pipe, and said: 
"I don't think I'll listen any longer; 
you won't mind if I go off to bed, will 
you? I don't want to spoil your sport, 
but it only confuses me. The whole 
thing seems simple enough to me — that 
God is leading the world to a knowledge 
of the truth — it sounds awfully solemn, 
that — but I mean it! I can't argue 
about these things, but I feel if I be- 
lieved what either of you are saying, I 
should have to shut up shop altogether." 

"Oh, we'll stop jawing," said Rod- 
erick; "don't go off like this!" 

"No, please don't stop talking!" 
said Harry, "there isn't any sort of 
reason to do so, if you are interested — 
but it makes me uncomfortable. I 

58 



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can't hold on. Good-night, and don't 
think me an ass, if you can help it. " 

He went out, and they heard him 
cross the orchard in silence, and the 
farm-door open and shut. 

" What's the matter with Harry?" 
said Norman; "he isn't annoyed, is 
he?" 

"Annoyed, no!" said Roderick, "but 
don't you see what has happened. You 
have no imagination, Fred — Don't you 
see that after that speech of his — which 
really was rather fine — he feels exactly 
as if he had been seen by Mrs. Hickes 
dancing a pas seul in his pyjamas on the 
lawn. I rather admire him for it — and 
it will restore his self-respect to go. 
He will feel he has done the right thing, 
and I'm not sure that he hasn't. It is 

59 



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better than finding nothing inconven- 
iently sacred, like you and me!" 

"Well, he may be right," said Nor- 
man, "but I object to not facing things. 
I'll tell you quite plainly what I object 
to in both your theories. You both of 
you begin by wanting to be comfortable. 
You are like children — you want to be 
reassured, and told that the medicine is 
nice. You both of you start by wanting 
nature, whatever nature may be, to 
have a specifically benevolent intention 
to you; you think that Nature is senti- 
mental, and Harry thinks that it is 
pious. It is neither; it is bent on doing 
something, evolving some sort of order; 
but it doesn't care a damn about 
people's feelings. It is very merciless 
and very strong. It is fighting some- 
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thing — I don't know what — and we 
have to find out what it means, and to 
fight too. I admit that it is a nasty- 
business that is going on; but I want 
to find out what is going on, and both 
you and Harry seem only bent on 
throwing eau-de-cologne about to hide 
the smell." 

"And I think," said Roderick, "that 
you are so much interested in the bad 
smell that you can't think of anything 
else. I don't agree with you, or with 
Harry either, because you are both 
working on a preconceived plan. I am 
really more scientific than either of 
you, because I go deeper in, and try 
to tell you what is behind both of your 
plans. Harry calls his plan religion, 
and he thinks that it is a lot of definite 

61 



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truths, which he calls dogmas, pumped 
into the world from outside — and the 
weakness of his case is that he can only 
say : ' You can't prove they are not true.' 
You say that it is all a matter of micro- 
scopes and chemicals; and the weak- 
ness of your case is that you say: 'You 
must prove that it is true* — and mean- 
while you miss a lot of fine things 
which one knows to be true, but can't 
prove. Harry isn't scientific enough, 
and you are too scientific; but I believe 
in the power of imagination to outrun 
facts a little — and that seems to me to 
be really the force which is pushing 
both you and Harry forwards, though 
you neither of you know it. " 

"I quite agree," said Norman, "that 
your imagination is well in advance of 
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the facts; and I think that it is all a 
waste of time. I believe that emotions 
are only a sort of ripple on the face of 
facts, and caused by the facts; and I 
want to put things in their place. I 
see a most almighty mess, and I want 
to get it straight. I don't see that your 
emotions help us. I agree with the man 
who said that a good sewer was an 
entirely holy thing, and I think it is 
worth all the music ever written, and 
all the pictures of angels that were ever 
painted. I want to make it possible for 
people to live rational and wholesome 
lives." 

4 'Yes, " said Roderick, "you worship 
the policeman and the sanitary inspect- 
or. But I don't want to substitute 
their figures in stained-glass windows 

63 



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for the figures of saints and angels. I 
maintain that a sense of what is beauti- 
ful must precede any desire to make 
things wholesome; and I believe that 
both you and Harry put what you call 
knowledge before beauty, while I think 
that knowledge is only a sort of desire 
for beauty. It seems to me that neither 
of you wants to interpret facts, but only 
to neglect the facts you don't happen to 
have noticed. I am every bit as scien- 
tific as you, and more so, in fact, because 
I don't deny your facts at all. I only 
think that the evidences of beauty are a 
more important set of facts than the 
evidences of ugliness; and I prefer to 
spend my time in studying what seems 
to me to be fine and splendid, because I 
think that is a quicker way to cure the 

6 4 



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nasty things than to go nosing into 
cesspools. You want to bully people 
out of being dirty — I want to make 
them wish to be clean. " 

"And where does poor Harry come 
in?" said Norman. 

"Oh, he wants to infect people with 
a false shame," said Roderick. "He 
is afraid both of beauty and ugliness 
alike. I would rather have one of his 
saints than one of your inspectors; but 
I think he is timid and conventional, 
while I think you are only strong and 
stupid." 

Norman laughed. "We have got 
into the Palace of Truth at last," he 
said. 

"It's your fault!" said Roderick. 
"You provoke me by being so cock- 

6 5 



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sure, and by regarding me as an elegant 
trifier. You see, I want to go to the 
heart of the thing, and to find the Tree 
of Life which I am sure is in the middle 
of the garden, while you are weeding 
out the thistles in the fields outside, 
and saying that you will believe in the 
Tree of Life when you see it. Hang 
you, I see it all the time, and it's full 
of fruit." 

"Yes, I will be just," said Norman; 
"I think you do see something which 
I don't see, and I think that Harry does 
too; but I must go my own way to 
work, and I'll pull up thistles for the 
present. I'm sure they have no busi- 
ness to be there!" 

"You're eating them, you dear old 
donkey!" said Roderick — "Look here, 
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I can't go on; I'm suddenly weary of 
the heights of philosophy. Let's get 
down again! We've had a splendid 
time here, haven't we? I wonder if we 
shall ever have as good a time again. 
Don't you know the awful feeling of the 
nice things slipping away — one can't keep 
them — sweet things have an end — I ex- 
pect it would be very dull if they didn't ! " 
"No, I don't care about looking 
back," said Norman; "I want to get on, 
to work, to get my teeth into something. 
Of course, I have had a very good time 
here, and I'd like to say how much I 
have enjoyed it. You will smile at 
what I'm going to say, Roderick — I'm 
not often sentimental — but I believe 
I care for you much more than you care 
for me, in spite of all your emotions!" 

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"Oh, that's all right, dear boy," said 
Roderick smiling, and more moved than 
he wished to show. 

"Yes, you think so!" said Xorman; 
''but I'll finish now. I think you will 
very likely go further than either Harry 
or me, and for the simple reason that 
you don't really care about either of us 
— you care for something behind us, of 
which we are just convenient symbols. 
Do you see what I mean? I care for 
one or two people in a definite and con- 
crete way; but you will simply go on, 
caring for people because they seem 
what you call beautiful — and then they 
will become uninteresting, and you will 
care no more — you will just go on 
rinding other people interesting and 
beautiful. I'm not finding fault, you 
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know! It's your way — i: isn't mine; 
but you miss something by it, which 
I think I have got. You will go about 
charming and delighting people — that's 
all right; yet you don't like people — ■ 
you like something you see in them — 
something they represent. But you 
don't care about humanity a bit; you 
don't care about causes. You are just 
looking for something you like. Xow I 
do really want to combine, to co-operate, 
to put heads together and to mend 
matters. I'm even ready to give up 
what I prefer, if I can get at a net result 
so. Xow, I don't want you to lose 
sight of that — I don't want you to do 
me an injustice; because I'm ashamed of 
caring so much that you should like 
me." 

6 9 



The Orchard Pavilion 

Norman stopped suddenly. Roder- 
ick leaned forwards, propping his chin on 
his hands, and looked at him. "That's 
magnificent!" he said; "why did you 
never say all this before? I didn't 
think you cared a hang for anyone! 
What an ass I am! I go about with 
my head in the air, and see nothing. 
You don't know what a fool you have 
made me feel! Well, never mind that 
now. I simply adore you! Is that 
enough ? " 

He slipped on his knees, and took 
Norman's hands for a moment in his 
own, then got up, laughing. "There!" 
he said, "I have taken my degree from 
you — a foolish ceremony, but sym- 
bolical." 

They went out, after extinguishing 
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the lamp, through the orchard; as they 
passed the violet-bed, Roderick picked 
a violet, and said, "Will you have one 
now?" Norman said nothing, but took 
the violet, held Roderick's arm for a 
minute, and they went into the house. 

Roderick lay long awake, revolving 
the little scene in his mind. "I've been 
an unmitigated ass!" he said to himself; 
"I can't forgive myself for not having 
seen." 



71 



VI 



On the following morning — it was to be 
their last day at Sunset Farm — Knollys 
sought out Roderick, and said, "Look 
here, Roderick, about last night — I'm 
very sorry, but I really couldn't do 
otherwise. I felt — does this sound to 
you absurd? — as I should have felt if 
you had been talking about my mother, 
laughing at her, criticising her. I don't 
for a moment say you haven't the right 
to discuss these things, but I also know 
you wouldn't wish to force me to listen, 
if it upsets me. I can't answer you, 
and it all puzzles me. Of course if 
I were really more strong-minded I 
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shouldn't care a bit; but I can't hold 
on to things with my mind, only with 
my heart. I saw a sentence the other 
day in a book which describes exactly 
what I feel, that a Christian hasn't 
many things to do, only one thing to do, 
looking always to Christ — and when 
I look at Him through talk like yours 
and Fred's, it's like looking through a 
bit of uneven glass which distorts the 
features. You will forgive me, won't 
you?" 

"Oh, it's all the other way," said 
Roderick. "I think if we had known 
exactly what you were feeling, we should 
never have gone on — we should never 
have begun. I'm not made that way — 
I don't think of anything as sacred — or 
rather the more that I believe a thing, 

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the more I like to hear it discussed, 
because it only strengthens my belief — 
or if it weakens my belief in it, then I 
think I am glad to have it weakened. 
Never mind! It's just one of those 
things which happen, and it's no use 
going back on it. I'm truly sorry!" 

"Will you tell Fred?" said Knollys. 
"I don't think I can even speak to him 
about it, but I am sure you understand 
how I feel about it all." 

"All right!" said Roderick. "But 
Fred understands quite well; and I 
think that in a way we both admire 
what you did." 

They were very careful that day, the 
three young men, to let no jarring note 
intervene. The pleasant days together, 
and the sense of its being all over and 

74 



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done with, touched them all with a 
sense of sadness — not unpleasant sad- 
ness. They sat for the last time in 
the pavilion, and spoke fitfully and 
quietly of ordinary things. 

Roderick was early astir the next 
morning; he woke up at the singing of 
the birds, and could not sleep again. 
So he got up and rambled about. The 
place was still asleep, it seemed, and 
the early light of dawn came in with a 
deep enriching touch of colour on wall 
and tree. Roderick had the sense that 
it had been a very beautiful period, 
singularly free from all ugly elements; 
and the little interview with both his 
companions in those last hours had 
drawn them very close to himself. Was 
it true, he wondered, that he was so 

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light-minded and fickle in affection as 
Fred had said? He did not feel so, but 
he recognised a certain insight in Fred's 
remarks which he could not gainsay; 
and that morning he wanted to get the 
spirit of the place and the time into his 
mind, and to fix, if he could, his affec- 
tion constantly on his friends. Such a 
time, he thought, ought to leave its 
mark, ought to bring him nearer to 
what he wished to become, to reassure 
him as he wished to be reassured. And 
he desired, too, not to feel that he took 
a narrow and prejudiced view — to under- 
stand Harry's belief and Fred's sceptic- 
ism. He did not want to be excluded 
from anything which seemed to him 
either pure or strong. 

Then came the farewells and the 

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bustle of departure; and the last look 
at the little pavilion among the orchard 
boughs, and the old house under the 
trees, with all the homely sights about 
it, and the breath of summer air. 



77 



PART II 

VII 

All that was in the year of grace 1884. 
The trio of the pavilion took their 
degrees and left Oxford. Norman went 
to the Bar, and did well. By the year 
1 9 12 he had a large practice; he had 
taken silk, and was considered certain 
to be made a judge. He was a widower 
now, and had one daughter whom he 
worshipped with a depth of devotion 
with which anyone seeing him in court, 
with his hard brisk manner and his 
rather pitiless grasp of mean issues, 
would have found it hard to credit him. 
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The Orchard Pavilion 

Knollys was a country clergyman, and 
an Honorary Canon of his Cathedral. 
He was happily married, and had three 
sons, as athletic and as simple-minded 
as their father. Roderick had become 
perhaps the most successful of the three. 
He had travelled for a time, then he had 
settled in London, had married a rich 
and distinguished wife, and he had 
become a prominent journalist and 
author. His leading articles were one 
of the strong points of the Morning 
Telegraph; he had written many and 
various books — novels, essays, criticisms, 
and belles-lettres generally, and his name 
was widely known. 

The three friends had not seen very 
much of each other, though they met 
at intervals; and Roderick had two or 

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The Orchard Pavilion 

three times travelled with Norman; 
but their circles did not touch; though 
Norman and Roderick had insisted 
with friendly persuasiveness on being 
allowed the pleasure of helping to send 
Knollys's three boys to the old school 
and the old college. 

This was a letter received by Norman 
in the spring of 1912: 

Lowndes Square, 
March 26, 191 2. 

My dear Fred, — I have got an 
amusing bit of news for you. Who 
would have thought it? My wife and 
I have for the last ten years been fit- 
fully planning to set up a little place 
in the country, instead of having the 
bother of taking a house somewhere 
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The Orchard Pavilion 

year by year. Last summer I saw in 
an agent's catalogue the sale of the 
Helmdon estate, announced in lots. 
You remember perhaps that Sunset 
Farm, where we spent that delightful 
month in the Long of '84, was part of 
it. Well, I bestirred myself, went down 
with my wife, and found the place 
practically unchanged, though dear old 
Hickes and his wife were long dead — I 
saw their graves in the churchyard. The 
old pavilion is just as it was; and my 
wife fell hopelessly in love with the 
place. We bought the farm, about a 
hundred acres ; we have built a new farm- 
house, not far away; and we have done 
up and added to the old farm-house, 
very judiciously, I think. We have left 
all the old farm-buildings; and I have 
6 81 



The Orchard Pavilion 

turned the pavilion into an outdoor 
study for myself. All this I have kept 
a profound secret; and now the place is 
ready for habitation. I have set my 
heart on a little house-warming; and 
I want you and Harry to come down 
for a couple of nights. I have even 
prevailed on my wife to let us have it 
to ourselves for those first two nights. 
It really is a dramatic affair, that we 
three should meet again nearly thirty 
years later; and we will have a rare 
talk, and see how our old theories have 
stood the test of time. I don't myself 
feel a bit different. I am writing to old 
Harry too; but I don't suppose he is so 
much tied as you are. So please fix a 
date if you can in the next month, and 
we will get Harry to put up a prayer for 
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The Orchard 'Pavilion 

Fair Weather. Please fall in with my 
whim, and if you can get down to lunch- 
eon on the Saturday so much the better. 
Meantime I am petitioning our parson, 
who is a good fellow, to let Harry preach 
on Sunday in the church, and I shall 
like to hear what he has to say. You 
will have to bring Violet down some 
other time. I am always rather touched 
when I think why you gave her that 
name ! — Ever yours, 

Roderick Armitage. 

Roderick wrote in very similar terms 
to Knollys, and all went well. 

On the 24th of April, Roderick was 
pacing the station platform at Eynedon 
shortly after noon. He was an interest- 
ing and striking figure. He still moved 

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The Orchard Pavilion 

lightly and gracefully. He wore his 
hair a little long, and had a carelessly- 
trimmed pointed beard and moustache, 
which showed a good many white hairs. 
His complexion was as clear and fresh 
as ever, with a sanguine tinge, and his 
bright eyes undimmed. He was easily 
dressed in well-worn and well-fitting 
clothes, and had an air of distinction 
and success which were unmistakable. 

The train drew up; Norman and 
Knollys descended. Norman was thin 
and wiry; he was bald now, and his 
clean-shaven lips and chin were 5rm 
and strong. His face was much lined, 
but he gave a sense of vigour, decision, 
and alertness. Knollys had retained 
the most youthful air of the three. He 
was hardly grizzled, and his tall form 

8 4 



The Orchard Pavilion 

was active and well-knit. His expres- 
sive face, with the large grey eyes, 
looked serious, and there were patient 
lines on his updrawn brow. They cer- 
tainly made a remarkable trio. Rod- 
erick greeted them both with great 
fervour and afTectionateness. A smart 
footman, assisted by Norman's youthful 
valet, saw to the luggage; and they 
were presently whirled off in Roderick's 
very luxurious car. 

1 ' I very nearly made you both bike ! ' ' 
said Roderick, laughing, "just to revive 
the atmosphere! But it doesn't do to 
be too dramatic. It's quite enough like 
a fairy tale as it is!" 

They were soon at the house, and 
strolled round with Roderick before 
luncheon. He had really treated the 

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The Orchard Pavilion 

whole thing very artistically. It was 
all elaborately simple; he had picked 
up old-fashioned local furniture, and 
there was a pleasant air of homely ease 
about the rooms. The pavilion itself 
had been hardly altered. "It's a prin- 
ciple of mine," said Roderick, "to let 
things alone — I don't want self-con- 
scious effects. I have had the paint 
just touched up, you see — but only 
so as to bring it back to what we re- 
member; but it's going to be an ideal 
study — and I am really determined to 
keep it for myself for meditation and 
repose. We are never going to have any 
but real friends here — people who can 
be trusted to understand. " 

The three lunched together, took one 
of their familiar walks, and after dinner 
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The Orchard Pavilion 

repaired to the pavilion. It looked 
very much the same, except that there 
was an ample fire of logs on the hearth, 
and that the room was lit by shaded 
candles instead of the old oil-lamp. 

"Now!" said Roderick, "for once it 
is the time and the place and the loved 
ones all together! Just fancy bringing 
this off! Whatever happens, I shall 
consider that fate has done well for us, 
to bring us together, so little damaged 
on the whole, after nearly thirty years! 
The ritual is all laid down for us to- 
night. I am going to have my say, 
and then Fred, and then Harry — and 
then Harry may leave the room if he 
must, but I hope he will see the talk 
out to-night without fear of disaster!" 

Knollys smiled, a fine serene smile. 

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"Yes," he said, "I don't think I need 
turn tail now. Dear me ! how often have 
I thought since of how I marched away, 
and what an ass I felt — it seemed such 
an absurd demonstration !" 

"I didn't quite understand it, I 
remember," said Norman, "but now 

"Hush, hush!" said Roderick, "you 
shall have your turn. Well now," he 

said — looking round at the others 

"here I am, and I have carried out my 
programme. I did exactly what I 
meant to do; I wandered about, I saw 
and heard and felt everything — and it 
was very good! I came home and I 
found a market for my wares. I found 
people perfectly willing to listen to any- 
thing I had to say, and I have been 
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saying the same things ever since in 
different ways. I married, and my wife 
spoils me to her heart's content and 
mine. I wish we had had children, but 
I don't know that I should have been at 
all a good father, and I expect it's better 
so. And I am rich, and I don't pretend 
not to like that, because it means liberty, 
and I can do exactly what I like best, 
without giving it a thought; and for 
each and all of these things I am abun- 
dantly grateful, and most of all for 
absolutely perfect health. I don't deny 
that all the things which people envy 
have been given me, and I have enjoyed 
them, and tried to share them too. And 
in a way — I won't pretend otherwise — 
I'm a personage. I can practically know 
anyone I like, and people listen to me, 

8 9 



The Orchard Pavilion 

and treat me with respect; and all that 
is undeniably jolly. And yet I am 
prepared — I think I may say this, 
though one never knows — to meet calam- 
ities if they come. I haven't had them, 
I haven't suffered. I have had the wine 
and the oil and the perfume as well; 
but I believe I could do without them 
and not be unhappy. Even now, I am 
conscious of just shading off a little into 
the past. The young men don't believe 
in me, and I expect I have had my say. 
As soon as I get an Honorary Degree, 
I shall feel that my day is over. 

"But I think just as I did. I went 
out to look for beauty and I have found 
it everywhere; I have preached it for 
all I am worth; but if you ask me 
frankly what effect I have had, I do 
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The Orchard Pavilion 

not think I have had any effect at all. 
I have made a good many people more 
comfortable, and I get hosts of letters 
which tell me so. But I do not think 
I have persuaded anyone to believe in 
my doctrines, except the people who 
believed them already. I have been a 
court-preacher, so to speak, and not a 
prophet. And to speak candidly, I 
think I have been too comfortable. If 
I had suffered, or agonised, or lost any- 
thing, or sacrificed anything — and if I 
had found, in spite of that, that I could 
still hold on to beauty, then I could have 
done something. But I have found 
myself at every turn, and not lost myself. 
"And yet I believe that I am right 
still, and that beauty can be wor- 
shipped; but I haven't taken enough 

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The Orchard Pavilion 

out of myself! I have always been 
agreed with and applauded — but I'm 
not spoilt, because I am quite aware of 
my failure. If I had stuck to some one 
big piece of artistic work, put my whole 
soul into it and wrestled with it, it 
would have been different; but I have 
always kept holiday, and sailed before 
the breeze. And yet I do not see how 
it could have been otherwise; beauty 
is a real, strong, noble principle; but it 
goes down deeper than I have been able 
to go; and I haven't penetrated to the 
inner soul of it — I have never been 
inside the Holy Place, or seen the 
mysteries celebrated. And yet I can 
see the real thing in the work of other 
men — Mind you, I have done my work 
conscientiously, but that isn't enough; 
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The Orchard Pavilion 

it's something much more fierce and 
sad that is wanted. And so I have been 
a sort of sign-post, pointing somewhere, 
and never going there myself; and I 
think I would give all my success for a 
touch of the divine fire. Art is as serious 
as death for some people ; and it walks as 
old Tennyson says: 

'With Death and Morning on the silver 
horns.' 

But I have been like the maid in the 
same poem, 

'Come down, maid, from yonder 
mountain height ; 

What pleasure lives in height (the shep- 
herd sang) , 

In height and cold, the splendour of 
the hills ? ' 

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The Orchard Pavilion 

"So you see where I am, old friends — 
very much where I was as a boy, living 
in the pleasure of the eye, and perhaps 
in the pride of life, and never quite 
touching the inner thing at all. But 
I'm happy — I dare to say that — though 
I have not gone out at the further door 
of experience, which leads, I fancy, on 
to bleak hills." 

His musical voice stopped suddenly, 
and he sat gazing at the fire. 

"There," he said, "that is my story 
— and the wonder to me is that I seem 
to be yet in the first chapter! Now, 
Fred, off you go!" 

Norman sat upright in his chair, 
with a half smile, holding his cigar 
between his fingers. 

"Well," he said, "I will do my best; 

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The Orchard Pavilion 

but my school of eloquence is a dry one, 
you know — Nisi Prius! The time has 
seemed very short to me; and I doubt 
if I have done more than knock the 
bottom out of most of my old theories. 
I'm not prepared to advance a theory. 
I have done a lot of work, much of it 
very useless, I think, some of it neces- 
sary. I have enjoyed it — yes, I have 
enjoyed it; but I am not sure that I 
haven't enjoyed it most because I 
haven't had time to think. It's a hard 
and tough business, life, and it has 
caught me like a stream and whirled 
me away, and I have just had to swim. 
I have made money, but I have had very 
little good out of it. I have had hardly 
any leisure, and I expect to die in har- 
ness. I have been a sort of servant, I 

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think, obeying orders, and just keeping a 
room swept — and I suppose that it has 
to be swept. I have not made friends — I 
am not curious about people ; they do not 
seem to me to have, as a rule, any clear 
ideas about anything. I had my one 
chance of looking inside life, when I 
married. I can't say very much about 
that, because in losing my wife, I lost 
the one person who did a little interpret 
life for me; but she died nearly twenty 
years ago, and I have got used to loneli- 
ness; then Violet began to grow up, and 
I begin to see something again in life 
that is worth having. I don't know 
what it is, but in loving her, I do seem to 
get near to what Roderick called the 
inner soul. I think — I can't say it 
clearly — that there is something moving 

9 6 



The Orchard Pavilion 

behind it all which loves, or tries to love; 
but there are barriers between, and it 
cannot come as near as it would. When 
my wife died, I felt, for a time, that 
she was utterly gone; not only lost to 
me, but vanished into nothingness. I 
don't feel that now. I think there is 
one last thing behind it all — the power 
of going on caring. I don't think that 
any other part of me will last, but I 
believe that this one part will. No, I'm 
not even sure of that ; but it's the nearest 
I can get to what is called faith — that it 
all goes on. I have been a good deal 
hammered by life, but I am not afraid 
of it, and I do not think very much of it. 
It isn't beautiful, it isn't noble — but it 
has got just that one ray of light in it — 
and I could say farewell to the rest of it 

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without a sigh — but then," he added, 
smiling, "'I suppose my sense of enjoy- 
ment is rather atrophied. Art, I fear, 
bores me profoundly — it seems to me 
a kind of mild pottering. And religion, 
as it presents itself to me, seems like a 
disputed claim to a peerage, depending 
on records which don't exist. But 
there's something there, there's some- 
thing! Then, too, — this is an awful 
confession, and it wouldn't improve 
my chances of legal promotion if it 
were repeated — but I don't much be- 
lieve in work! It maintains what is 
called one's self-respect, but I'm not 
sure that it is worth very much, when 
all is said and done. I think I have 
been rather extinguished by work, but, 
like Roderick, I don't see how it could 

9 8 



The Orchard Pavilion 

have been otherwise; yet I say plainly 
that I do believe in love ; at least I think 
that the secret is hidden there, if any- 
where ; and when I come to die, I believe 
that that is what Roderick calls the 
further door . . . and I have a feeling 
that the hills beyond are not wholly 
bleak. " He stopped for an instant, and 
then reverting to his driest manner, he 
said with a smile: "There, m'lud, that's 
my case!" 

Roderick sat lost in thought, looking 
at the fire. Knollys smiled, a very 
beautiful and quiet smile; there was a 
long silence. 



99 



VIII 

"Now," said Roderick, bestirring him- 
self at last, "it's your turn, Harry! I 
very much want to hear what you have 
to say!" 

"Ah!" said Knollys, "I don't know 
if I shall find the words — it's all deeply 
interesting to me — I can't say how 
interesting! It's wonderful to be here 
again together; and yet I was rather 
afraid of coming, you know. You two 
fellows are such swells, and have gone 
sailing ahead, while I have been in 
a very quiet backwater. I thought, 
coming here, that I should feel that — 
that without meaning to do so, you 

IOO 



The Orchard Pavilion 

would each of you make me realise how 
homely and feeble my life had been. 
But, do you know," — he turned from 
one to the other smiling, as he spoke — 
"I don't feel it at all; because the things 
which you two have found — I don't 
know how to say this without seeming 
critical — don't seem to have been im- 
portant, somehow, even to yourselves! 
Now that sounds as if I were attempting 
to triumph over you, and making a 
pedestal out of my own want of success, 
calling it unworldliness or other- worldli- 
ness in order to glorify it. I thought I 
should probably envy you your successes 
— I think I did a little envy them — but 
you don't seem to set any store by them 
yourselves; the most you have said for 
them is that they have been conven- 

IOI 



The Orchard Pavilion 

iences ; and you are neither of you looking 
at them, it seems to me, but through 
them, at something else, which you have 
not yet found. 

"Well, it seems to me very odd that 
I should be lecturing two famous men; 
but I will try to say what I think. It 
seems to me that the whole point of 
life is to get inside life, to see it from 
the inside. I have got something further 
to say about that from the point of 
view of religion, but I will leave that 
for the present. Still, from what you 
have said, I can't help feeling that 
neither of you has exactly got inside 
life. You, Roderick, seem to me hardly 
to have changed at all; it's amazing to 
me how little you have changed — but in 
the old days you always appeared to me 
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The Orchard Pavilion 

to be holding up your ideas of art as a 
kind of shield against life, and you seem 
to have gone on doing that all these 
years, and life has never got inside your 
guard. I admire it, in a way — but I 
still don't think you are wholly to be 
congratulated. 

"You, Fred, seem to me to have got 
at life in one thing — in your marriage, 
and, may I say plainly, in the loss of 
your wife. But even you have done 
this in spite of life, and not by means of 
it. Your work has been a fortress to 
you — of course you have seen life — 
I expect you know more about men and 
women than I do — but you have only 
seen it — you haven't lived it. At least 
I don't feel sure that you have; and I 
don't think you feel sure either. 

103 



The Orchard Pavilion 

"Well, you may ask, what has my 
life been, that I should speak so? and 
I answer, it has been life. I have had a 
home, I have had to live among very 
simple people, I have seen them in 
health and happiness, and I have seen 
them in pain and perplexity — I have 
had to help them along as well as I 
could. Then I have been poor; I have 
had to contrive, I have had to feel that I 
could not do things I should like to do — 
and I have had times, I am ashamed to 
say, when I have felt utterly flattened 
out and disheartened — it has seemed 
such a very dingy business! But it has 
been real life, because it has often not 
been at all interesting, indeed as dull as 
ditch-water; while neither of you have 
ever known what it is to be dull; but 
104 



The Orchard Pavilion 



dullness is just the one enemy which 
most people have to fight! When I 
read books and stories — I haven't much 
time for reading — I often find myself 
wondering why it has all got to be made 
so interesting and exciting; it isn't in the 
least like what happens. If life were 
exciting, it might be hard, but it 
wouldn't be humiliating; but it isn't 
exciting — the days, weeks, months, 
when literally nothing happens — those 
are the times, I believe, when the real 
battle has to be fought; and it's all the 
worse, because it doesn't seem a battle 
at all; it is like just struggling with mud, 
what the Pilgrim's Progress calls the 
Slough of Despond; there's no way out, 
there's nothing alive about you, within 
or without — there are the services and 

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The Orchard Pavilion 

the school and the visitings and the 
household cares; no one seems to want 
any help, and you haven't anything to 
give them if they did. There's a 
naughty boy to speak to who won't see 
that what he has done is wrong, and 
says that he is not the worst ; or there's 
an old woman dying, who suffers, and 
can't think of anything but her pain; 
and all the hopes and beliefs which 
appear so glorious and so obvious to 
oneself are simply nothing to either of 
them. 

"But then religion comes in — and I 
do not expect you to sympathise with 
this. I went from my town curacy, 
where it was interesting enough, to 
help my father who was old and ill; 
and then he died, and they all wanted 
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The Orchard Pavilion 

me to take the living; and though I 
did not want to, there were overwhelm- 
ing reasons; and there I have been ever 
since. Then I married, and the children 
came. 

"All the while, I was there for a 
certain purpose. I came away from 
my theological college full of notions; 
I picked them up like a pigeon picking 
up peas. Well, many of those notions 
did not seem to fit the case — they did 
not seem tools for me to work with; 
and though I do not deny their impor- 
tance for a moment — Church tradition, 
Church history, development, Biblical 
criticism — yet I began to see that they 
did not really affect the problem, be- 
cause they were outside life and not 
inside it. I think my creed is a much 

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The Orchard Pavilion 

simpler one now. What it seems I 
have to bring home to my people is 
just that God exists, and that He has 
a purpose full of love to every soul; 
and best of all, that the Eternal Son 
Himself came down to live in the world 
He loves, to redeem it, to save it; and 
that His Holy Spirit still moves in the 
world, and can enter into the hearts of 
those who believe, by faith, by prayer, 
and by the Sacrament which Christ 
ordained — old well-known phrases, all 
of them, but hiding the secret of all life 
and change. And so I came to see that 
religion was just a life and a hope, and 
that Christ is with us still, if we can be 
simple enough to invite Him to enter 
the soul; and then at last one sees that 
that is life — to know Him, not to know 
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about Him — and that in any place one 
may not only bear witness to Him, but — 
may I say — introduce Him, make Him 
known. I am content to do that — in- 
deed there is nothing else that I can do ; 
and the meaning of life — I dare to say 
this — has become clear to me; it is 
beauty, Roderick, and, Fred, it is love; 
but it is something more than that — it is 
force and faith; and till one knows and 
feels that, the meaning of life is not 
clear. " He stopped for an instant, and 
then he said: "I'm not trying to convert 
you, as it is called; people have to find 
their own way to that knowledge, and 
it seems so far from being either splendid 
or attractive — but it is what is meant by 
losing oneself to find oneself; and the 
secret lies there." 

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The Orchard Pavilion 

There followed a short silence; and 
then Roderick said: "Ah, old boy, you 
have outshot us both! Yes, you have 
indeed been to a far country, and seen 
things which I have not seen ! I should 
have argued with you in old days, but 
I'm not inclined to do that now. I 
don't doubt what you have said, and it 
seems to me beautiful — and something 
more than beautiful — it's real enough! 
But I'm going to ask you two questions. 
If I grant, for the moment, that what 
you say is true, does it mean, do you 
think, that one who like myself is living 
among sights and sounds and ideas 
which seem to leave no room for any- 
thing else, they are so full of life and 
beauty, does it mean, I ask, that I am 
but wasting my time in an ante-chamber 
no 



The Orchard Pavilion 

— that I shall have to turn my back on 
all this? Because the difficulty seems 
to me that your theory, big and vigor- 
ous as it is, has a tendency to starve life. 
It's fine, it's austere — but it isn't rich! 
If you have to distinguish, let me say, 
between good and evil, do you think 
that all these exquisite qualities, which 
I see so acutely, are of the nature of 
evil — wandering fires to distract one 
from the path? Isn't that the mistake 
of Puritanism, that it shuts the eyes to 
what is after all the work of what I will 
call God's hand?" 

Knollys bent forward. "No, in- 
deed," he said, "I'm not a Puritan. I 
will go further and say that the saint, 
as I understand a saint, above all things 
enjoys. He is the person who enjoys 

III 



The Orchard Pavilion 

life most, because he has not to be 
always selecting. Shall I dare to say 
that the saint is a sort of artist in 
morals — the fineness and the ugliness 
of it is for ever present to him. Don't 
suppose that I am calling myself a 
saint — that is quite beyond me — but 
he is much more interested in life than 
other men, because the values are 
always present, everywhere, in the 
stupidest man, the most foolish woman, 
the smallest child. No one can escape 
from handling life, and making choices, 
and using the will ; but you artists seem 
to sweep so much of it away as common 
rubbish. I think your senses are too 
strong for you, too insistent — so that 
you don't see the moral quality in life. " 
"That's a good answer!" said Fred. 

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The Orchard Pavilion 

"Yes, it is," said Roderick, "but I have 
a further question. If I grant that the 
saint has really a richer view of life — 
and I see that he may be more in touch 
with it than the artist — what is God 
about, if I may use such a phrase, by 
making all the finer developments of 
humanity, the intellect, the observation, 
the humour, the artistic sense, such that 
they cloud the simple truth? He seems 
to be making man on the one hand more 
complex and critical; and every step 
in that direction makes it harder for a 
man to submit himself to the sort of 
belief you have outlined. If the truth is 
so utterly important and so unmistak- 
able, it should be easier and not harder 
for the more finely-bred man to appre- 
hend it?" 

8 113 



The Orchard Pavilion 

"Ah!" said Knollys, "there I admit 
you are beyond me. I quite see that 
the greatest human gifts, and the things 
which dazzle men's minds most, do seem 
to make it harder for them to perceive 
the truth, as I hold it. But I fall back 
on a democratic idea ! Side by side with 
this fineness of development of which 
you speak, which is confined to a very 
small and fortunate minority, the vast 
mass of humanity are beginning to 
perceive, to ask questions, to assert 
their rights, to claim liberty. Men are 
more and more equalised, and the sort 
of leisure and opportunities which you 
have enjoyed seem likely to become 
more and more impossible. I am not 
sure, " he said, with a smile, "that you 
cannot be neglected! I do not believe, 
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I fear, in the intellectual side of religion, 
and still less in the aesthetic side, but 
what I believe is growing up in the world 
is the sense that to deal with life at all, 
and life, I mean, lived on very common 
lines, a real sense of its significance is 
needed — and though I agree that the 
sense of beauty is a little bit of experi- 
ence, I feel that experience is a bigger 
thing than that, and that it has got to 
be dealt with spiritually — that is, with a 
faith that God has a plan from which 
the dullest and coarsest are not shut 
out ; and that in the sense of His Father- 
hood and man's brotherhood the solu- 
tion must be found. Religion simply 
means that to me — Baptism, which is 
the symbol of the cleansing of evil, is 
the sign of Fatherhood. The Sacrament, 

115 



The Orchard Pavilion 

which is the symbol of unity of life, is 
the sign of Brotherhood. I do not 
believe that there is much else which 
matters. Records and tradition just 
testify to continuity; it's the moral 
force in the world which is God; and it 
grows ... it grows!" 

"You are a good advocate!" said 
Fred, smiling. "But I have a further 
question to put, which you will see is 
born out of my experience. What if 
your life has been such — and mine has 
been such — as to make you, instead of 
desiring brotherhood with men, only 
eager to separate yourself from a type 
which seems so full of the basest selfish- 
ness, vile trickery, the desire to plunder 
and exploit the world? That is what 
the law-court teaches you — to mistrust 
116 



The Orchard Pavilion 

everyone, to believe everything possible 
of anyone; and if that falls to bits, 
the Fatherhood of God goes with it — 
it makes one feel — I am not speaking 
profanely — as if God were indifferent, 
careless, ineffective." 

"Well," said Knollys, smiling, "are 
you not perhaps in the position of the 
doctor who is tempted to believe that 
all the world is ill? That is what I 
mean by not seeing life from the inside 
— you only see the scum and foam of 
it. I myself believe more in human 
nature every year I live — I see it sweet 
and humble and kind, and full of infinite 
possibilities. It isn't always obvious, 
I grant. People can't express what is 
in them; every sort of prejudice and 
ugly habit and selfishness gets encrusted 

117 



The Orchard Pavilion 

round the soul. But again and again I 
have come at last to the innermost 
essence — and I can only say that I 
have seen it to be, as a rule, very child- 
like and innocent and true — not far 
from the Kingdom of God. It's only 
a fancy, no doubt," he added, "but I 
have sometimes felt that in losing our 
body, with all its inheritances and fears 
and habits, we might find that what is 
left is infinitely clear and guileless and 
loving. You see I have watched many 
people die — and at the last flicker, when 
the world is already almost out of sight, 
I have generally seen something very 
pure awake. The last look is almost 
always a look of love — and if that is 
left, does anything else matter?" 

"I think not, " said Fred very gravely. 
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The Orchard Pavilion 

"Yes, I am glad to have heard that 
said." 

"Well," said Roderick, rising and 
smiling at his friends, "the play is 
almost played out, I think. It's new 
to me, Harry, to have all this clearly 
said — it's the sort of thing that I have 
missed hearing! But I will say this, 
that you make me feel both stupid and 
unperceptive ; you have given me much 
to think about. I'm incurably frivol- 
ous, I know — but I seem to have come 
to the edge of something to-night, and 
to be looking over. A great thing 
seems to have escaped me — and it 
somehow appears that Fred has more 
idea of it than I have; but it won't be 
lost on me, it won't indeed!" 

119 



IX 



They all went to church the following 
morning. There was a larger congrega- 
tion than usual, as it was known that 
Knollys was to preach. Roderick found 
the whole thing very delightful. It 
was a fine old solid church, not much 
restored; the flooring was uneven, the 
old pews leaned at pleasant angles; the 
walls showed stains of weather, and 
there was an odd brightly-painted 
Jacobean monument in the chancel, 
on which the in-streaming sun fell 
very quaintly. Roderick liked the holi- 
day air of the congregation, and the 

loud artless music which was sung. 
1 20 



The Orchard Pavilion 

He admired the look of Knollys in his 
surplice and hood, and the expression 
of his face, very still and gentle, and as 
if self, he thought, had somehow passed 
out of it. 

Knollys preached, very simply in- 
deed, without any notes, from a text 
from Job — "That which I see not, teach 
Thou me." It was a sermon not ad- 
dressed, as Roderick thought it would 
have been, to himself and Norman, but 
directly to the congregation; and there 
was something truly pastoral in the 
way in which Knollys faced the people, 
looking hither and thither, without any 
self -consciousness at all. He said that 
one of the greatest difficulties with 
which Christians had to deal was the 
tolerance with which they regarded 

121 



The Orchard Pavilion 

their own characters, which was quite 
different from the way in which they 
saw and marked the faults of others. 
" We make, " he said, "every allowance for 
ourselves, because we know our own 
difficulties and temptations." But the 
result of this, he said, was that many of 
our faults quite escaped us. "We are 
quick-tempered, and excuse it by saying 
that we say frankly what we think; or we 
are sullen, and pretend to ourselves that we 
restrain our outbreaks of temper; and so 
it comes about that most other people 
know what our faults are more truly than 
we know ourselves; while we take refuge 
in thinking that we are well-intentioned 
people, and that God will not be hard on us. 
"And indeed, dear friends," he said, 
"God will not be hard on us; He lets 
122 



The Orchard Pavilion 

us go our own way, perhaps for many 
years, because He means us to find the 
way for ourselves to His Heart; He does 
not want a timid obedience, though He 
would rather have that than a timid dis- 
obedience; but what He really desires is 
a trustful love. Our troubles and suffer- 
ings — we cannot do without them — are 
really invitations to us to trust Him; and 
you may take my word for it, that I have 
known many people who have found their 
way to Him through trouble, but hardly 
any who have found the way through 
prosperity! And the one and only test 
of our nearness to God is the way in which 
we feel about other people. We are all 
moving together, a glad and a sorrowful 
company, to a life the greatness of which 
we can hardly even guess. As long as we 

123 



1 he Orchard Pavilion 

are fust busied with our own designs, 
anxious to get as much happiness as we 
can, using other people to increase our 
happiness, we are hardly looking to God at 
all; and the best reason for wanting to get 
rid of our faults is that they are the things 
which keep other people away from us, 
make them fear us and avoid us. For the 
moment we begin to care about other 
people, we are different. There is no 
better way of making a friend than by 
allowing another to do us a kindness; and 
there is no pleasure like that of being kind 
to those we love. 

"But then some of you may say: 'I 
am not naturally kind; I do not natur- 
ally like other people; and as for loving 
God, I do not even know how to begin. 
He is so far away, He allows such dread- 
124 



The Orchard Pavilion 

ful things to happen, He has so many 
rules and commandments which we want 
to break, how can we know Him, how can 
we please Him?"' 

He stopped, and looked down the 
church with a smile. 

" Yes, " he said, u that is the old diffi- 
culty and the great difficulty — that He 
demands our love, and will not show His 
face to us, that we may love Him, as we 
certainly should, if we coidd but behold 
Him. But He is there — we none of us 
doubt that; and whatever our lives may 
be, He is trying to show us in a hundred 
ways, that He needs our love; He cannot 
do without that, and He waits till we can 
give it, till we have leisure to turn from 
all the little cares which so fill our minds 
and hearts, and to find Him behind them 

125 



The Orchard Pavilion 



all and above them all. Look there" he 
said, pointing to the east window of 
the church, "what do you see there? 
Christ upon the Cross, dying alone and 
in failure. That is the answer! That 
is how God comes to meet us, to show that 
there is no human suffering which He 
would not bear. It is there that the worst 
that man can do, and the best that God 
can do, join hands. " 

He was silent for a moment, with an 
uncontrollable emotion. Then he re- 
sumed: l "That which I see not, teach 
Thou me.'' The King in His beauty, the 
land that is very far off, that is what we 
desire to see, and what we shall see, the 
moment we are worthy of it. Our doubts , 
our fears, our troubles, are all of them 
simply proofs that we are looking for 
126 



The Orchard Pavilion 

something beyond them, and that we can- 
not jind God in them. 

" So that is my simple message to you 
to-day. It is nearly thirty years since 
I have been in this church. I was just 
beginning then, as a young man, in much 
pride and carelessness, to see that I could 
not do without God; and, praised be His 
Name, I have been finding my way to 
Him ever since; and if I could but tell 
you the glory and joy of that, you would 
not doubt my words. I am not telling 
you to do anything difficult, anything 
which the youngest child cannot do; and 
if you once begin to do it, you will find 
all the things that vex and distress and 
alarm you, begin quietly to vanish away; 
and the love of God will rise in your 
hearts, as the flower blooms in the spring. 

127 



The Orchard Pavilion 

Only practise trusting Him, putting your 
hand in His, as a child on a dark night 
puts its hand in the hand of its mother; 
live in His presence, recognise His love! 
Do not be afraid that He will not make 
allowances for you, or that He will try 
your strength overmuch. The journey 
may be long and weary, but He will bring 
you home to Himself at last. " 

It was simple enough, but Roderick 
felt a strange peacefulness shed abroad 
by the words, delivered as they were 
with a directness of conviction which 
made an intense appeal. There was 
no shadow of doubt that Knollys was 
speaking out of a real depth of experi- 
ence, the quality of which Roderick 
felt himself quite unable to criticise. 

He walked home with Norman; 
128 



The Orchard Pavilion 

Knollys had said that they were not 
to wait for him, as he was going to the 
Vicarage. 

"That was very wonderful, I think," 
said Roderick lightly. "Dear old boy, 
how splendid he looked! Now there's 
a life behind that," he added, "which 
is quite different from what I expected 
of Harry! I thought I should find 
myself disagreeing with everything that 
he said, and quarrelling with all his 
assumptions — but he did not make any 
assumptions at all ! It's a fine handling 
of life that! It has the true artistic 
quality!" 

"He's got a case," said Norman 

rather grimly; "he has certainly got 

a case — that is the sort of thing that 

would tell with a jury! Come," he 

9 129 



The Orchard Pavilion 

added, " that's a base criticism! I 
must honestly admit that I haven't 
been in a church for years, but if I 
could hear that sort of religion preached, 
I would go. Don't you see, Roderick," 
he added, "that this is the real thing — 
the thing we all want! You say he 
made no assumptions — I admit they 
did not sound like assumptions — but 
he made one all through, and that was 
his idea of God. There's the eternal 
difficulty. But I must add this. Most 
parsons used to seem to me in the old 
days to preach as if they were trying 
to persuade themselves that what they 
said was true. But Harry has seen 
something — he has got hold of some- 
thing which you and I have missed. 
It isn't a question of proofs and argu- 
130 



The Orchard Pavilion 

ments. It may not be exactly what he 
thinks it to be; and I daresay that if 
we discussed it all, he would say a dozen 
things I should think were very bad 
evidence. But he has touched some 
force or other — there's no excuse for 
doubting that. It's as clear to me that 
his love of God is as real a thing as — 
well, as my love for Violet. It's as 
definite a thing as that; and I simply 
feel for once in my life, that I -have no 
business to call it imagination. A man 
can't make himself believe a thing like 
that. I don't doubt that there is some- 
thing which he sees, as clearly as you 
see what you call beauty; and I'm 
somewhat bewildered, because it isn't 
visible to me. I don't pretend I am 
going to look for it — my habits and 

131 



The Orchard Pavilion 

views are too much fixed for that — but, 
good Heavens, suppose that it, or some- 
thing like it, is really there all the 
time!" 

"It isn't inconceivable to me," said 
Roderick; "it's an artistic perception 
of moral values, I believe. I don't 
deny it has interested me — and it was 
certainly beautiful ! ' ' 



132 



They sat again in the pavilion that 
evening. They had strolled and talked 
all the afternoon, and all three felt a 
little tired. It had been a curious 
strain, after all, the reunion ! 

As they sat smoking, Roderick said: 
" Harry, we won't discuss your sermon 
— though I intended to; but Fred and 
I have spoken about it, and we are in- 
terested, and more than interested." 

''I fear I was very dull!" said Harry. 
"I seemed unable to think of anything, 
and just said what lies at the bottom 
of my mind, you know. I can't prove 
these things; I just seem to know them." 

133 



The Orchard Pavilion 

"Yes," said Fred, "I felt that; and 
you must let me say one thing, Harry, 
I didn't expect to agree with you, and 
I am not sure that I do agree with you 
— but I felt like a blind man listening 
to a description of colours from a man 
with eyes. My difficulty is simply this 
— why, if that is the one fact in the 
world — and it obviously is to you — are 
we not all shown it, not necessarily 
clearly, but beyond the power of doubt? " 

"Ah!" said Harry, "I can't answer 
that. It seems to me as clear as that I 
am alive. You want proofs, you think 
perhaps that I make assumptions. But 
so do you! We each of us assume that 
the other exists. We can't prove it; 
and yet nothing which you call proof 
can begin at all till we have both of us 

134 



The Orchard Pavilion 

made that assumption. It is true that 
I go further and assume God. God and 
the soul — I am not sure of anything 
else; but I can't show you what I think 
I see; and I have a feeling too that you 
see it, though you call it by a different 
name — and then both you and Roderick 
have been very busy, and that makes it 
harder, I suppose/' 

"Well," said Roderick, "we will not 
talk any more about that now. I am 
tired of weighing and valuing things! 
Let us just be glad that something has 
brought us three together again in the 
dear old place! I am sure that fact 
alone ought to prove anything and 
everything. It's strange and beautiful, 
and I will go so far as to say that it. 
seems affectionate! That has got to 

135 



The Orchard Pavilioti 



be enough. I have a very real sense of 
gratitude about me to-night, and I am 
willing to allow that I have been hand- 
somely used. My cup is as full as it can 
hold; and even if it is dashed to pieces 
in my hands, I would still be thankful 
for my invitation to the feast of life, and 
say that I had been royally entertained. " 

"And I too," said Norman, "I don't 
complain ; I have had a fine time, and I 
know it!" 

"That's good," said Knollys, smiling. 
"But perhaps I don't think it all so 
wonderful as you two! You see, I ex- 
pect wonders to happen; that's my 
trade! and will you think it very tire- 
some if I quote a text, and say that we 
shall see greater things than these!" 

136 



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